


Come Apart at the Seams (Now I Know What Dying Means)

by hannasus



Category: Arrow (TV 2012)
Genre: F/M, Heavy Angst, Revenge, Season/Series 04, Tissue Warning, Violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-11-12
Updated: 2015-11-12
Packaged: 2018-05-01 07:50:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,297
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5198042
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hannasus/pseuds/hannasus
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>“I can protect myself,” Oliver had said, as if it were that simple. “So, I’m running for mayor.”</i>
</p>
            </blockquote>





	Come Apart at the Seams (Now I Know What Dying Means)

“ _I can protect myself,” Oliver had said, as if it were that simple. “So, I’m running for mayor.”_

* * *

Oliver and Diggle were working in the garage when Felicity’s voice rang out over the PA system in the new lair, shrill and breathless: “ _Oliver!_ ”

Oliver dove for the control panel. “Felicity?” She was at Palmer Tech—he’d just talked to her a half hour ago—which meant she’d connected to the PA system remotely with her tablet. “Felicty, what’s wrong?”

The only answer was a crash on the other end, followed by silence.

“Felicity!” Oliver shouted futilely into the intercom. “Felicity, talk to me!”

* * *

It took them seven minutes to get to Palmer Tech. SCPD were already on the scene, the blue lights of the police cruisers flashing ominously in front of the building.

There was no ambulance. Oliver didn’t know whether to take that as a good sign or a bad one.

A uniformed patrolman tried to stop them at the door, but one of the detectives recognized them and waved them into the lobby.

There was a body lying on the floor in a pool of blood. The guard on duty at the security desk had been killed. One shot to the head, precise and professional.

Oliver ran for the elevators.

When they stepped off on the executive floor, Captain Lance was waiting for them.

“Where is she?” Oliver demanded, shoving past him. He had to see it for himself.

“She’s not here,” Lance said, trailing him into Felicity’s office. “They took her.”

She’d put up a fight. Felicity’s tablet—the source of her last, desperate call for help—lay shattered on the floor. There were papers strewn all over, furniture overturned. A smear of blood on the wall.

And written beside it, a message:

_You should have dropped out of the race, Queen._

* * *

“ _Oliver, I know you don’t want to hurt this girl,” Diggle had said on the night it all started. “But we’re asking her to get involved in some pretty dangerous stuff.”_

“ _We can protect her,” Oliver had said, as if it were that simple._

* * *

“The tracker,” Oliver said, turning to Diggle.

There was a GPS tracker in Felicity’s necklace. He’d given it to her after they came back to Star City, when he put on the hood again. She promised him she’d wear it every day.

“Already on it,” Diggle said, squinting at his phone. “I’ve got a signal—five miles east of here.”

The GPS led them to a building on the edge of the warehouse district. Oliver stared out the car window, his hands balled into fists, as Diggle sped through red lights and stop signs to get them there.

Felicity was close. Oliver could feel it. They’d find her.

He was going to get her back. And once he did, he’d never let her out of his sight again.

Only four blocks away now.

Three.

Two.

One.

That’s when the building exploded in front of them.

* * *

“ _You’re safe,” Oliver had said, cradling Felicity in his arms after the last explosion that had torn their world apart. “You’re safe. I’m here.”_

* * *

Diggle slammed on the brakes as shrapnel rained down around them. The car spun 180 degrees and skidded to a stop in the middle of the street.

Oliver stumbled out of the car, his ears still ringing from the concussion of the blast. Flames licked at the sky twenty feet in the air, consuming what little was left of the building ahead of him.

The building that Felicity had been inside.

Ash filled his mouth and lungs, threatening to choke him as he staggered toward the conflagration. He could hear Diggle shouting his name, but Oliver pushed onward, heedless. Heat seared his skin and singed the hair on his face and arms. He couldn’t breathe, could barely see, but he was so close. If he could just get to her, maybe there was still a chance—

Diggle’s arms wrapped around him, strong as steel cables, dragging him back.

“We have to get inside!” Oliver shouted over the roar of the flames. “We have to save her!”

“It’s too late!” Diggle shouted back. “She’s gone.”

“NO!” Oliver screamed, struggling with all the strength he had in his body.

But Diggle held fast, refusing to let him go.

* * *

“ _This life that I’ve chosen, it only ends one way.”_

_Oliver had tried to warn her off, but Felicity had refused to be driven away._

_He’d always assumed he would be the one to die._

* * *

Lance looked at him with eyes that were full of pity.

Thea fell into his arms and cried.

Diggle stood silent as a stone, and never left his side.

“Mr. Queen!” the reporters clamored outside the police station. “Will you be dropping out of the mayoral race now?”

“Go fuck yourselves,” Oliver said, straight into the cameras.

Diggle drove him home after the police were done taking their statements, and followed him up to the loft. “You should try to get some sleep,” he said, dropping down on the couch. “I’ll be right here if you need anything.”

Oliver didn’t want company, but he was too exhausted to argue. He went upstairs and closed the bedroom door behind him.

* * *

“ _If you’re not leaving, I’m not leaving,” Felicity had told him once, a fire in her eyes and an obstinate set to her jaw._

_But in the end it wasn’t up to her._

* * *

Oliver laid down and tried to sleep.

The sheets still smelled like her. He curled around her pillow and pressed his face into it, inhaling what was left of her scent.

Alone in the dark, in the bed that had been his and Felicity’s, he cried.

For a full fifteen minutes he let himself cry, the sound of it muffled by the pillow. Then he got up and washed his face with cold water.

Oliver lay back down, on top of the sheets this time, and stared up at the ceiling.

He lay like that for hours before he finally drifted off to sleep.

* * *

“ _I don’t regret a single moment,” Felicity said. “And you shouldn’t either.” She was sitting on the counter of their kitchen in Ivy Town. Morning sunlight shone in her hair, which was loose and wavy, the way he liked it best._

“ _You said that once before,” Oliver pointed out._

_She hopped off the counter and walked toward him. “It’s still true.”_

“ _Even now?”_

“ _Especially now.” She stopped in front of him and reached up to press her hand against his cheek._

“ _I wanted to marry you,” he said, leaning into her touch._

_Her cheeks dimpled in a smile. “I know. You weren’t exactly subtle about it.”_

“ _Would we have been happy?”_

“ _What do you think?” She rose up on her tiptoes and kissed him, slow and soft._

“ _I love you,” he breathed against her lips._

“ _Don’t give up,” she whispered. “Promise me.”_

* * *

Oliver opened his eyes. Sunlight streamed in through the cracks in the blinds, just like any other morning.

Maybe it had all been a dream. Maybe when he turned his head Felicity would be sleeping beside him. Safe and sound.

“ _I had a terrible dream,” he’d tell her. “You were dead.”_

“ _It’s okay,” she’d say as she stroked his face. “It was just a dream. I’m right here.”_

Oliver turned his head.

The other side of the bed was empty. It wasn’t a dream.

Felicity was dead and somehow the sun had come up anyway.

* * *

“You get any sleep?” Diggle asked when Oliver wandered out of the bedroom.

“Some.”

He was still wearing yesterday’s clothes. They were filthy and smelled like smoke, but they were the last thing Felicity had seen him in and he hadn’t been able to make himself change out of them yet.

Diggle poured Oliver a cup of coffee and slid it across the counter to him.

The coffee was scorching hot, and it burned his tongue. The place where it burned was the only part of him that didn’t feel numb. Oliver swallowed another mouthful, letting it burn the roof of his mouth and down the back of his throat.

“You hungry?” Diggle asked.

Oliver shook his head.

“You gotta eat, man.”

“I will.”

Diggle pulled open the fridge. “How about I make you some eggs?”

Oliver remembered a morning in a different kitchen, when Felicity had tried to make him an omelet. How he’d swept her into his arms and carried her to bed, and they’d gotten so lost in each other they forgot all about breakfast.

“No eggs,” he said. “Maybe some toast.”

Diggle shrugged and grabbed the bread off the counter. It was the rye bread Felicity liked. Oliver made a special trip to the bakery for it every week. Diggle slotted four slices of Felicity’s favorite bread into the toaster and pressed the lever.

Oliver swallowed and looked down at his hands. There was still grease under his fingernails from working on the bike yesterday. It felt like a million ago since he’d heard Felicity cry out his name over the PA system, but it hadn’t even been 24 hours.

When the toaster popped up a few minutes later, Diggle set two slices in front of Oliver and kept two for himself.

Oliver looked up. “What do I do now, John?”

“You eat it,” Diggle said, nodding at the toast.

“No. I mean … what do I do now that …” Oliver trailed off, unable to dislodge the words from his throat. “I don’t know what to do.”

He felt empty inside. The strange thing was, he didn’t feel sad. Missing her was a physical pain, like a knife wound in his chest, but there wasn’t any emotion associated with it.

Emotions were for people who still had something left to care about.

“You keep going,” Diggle said.

“How?” Oliver couldn’t even imagine getting through the next few hours, much less the next few days. The future seemed like an impossibility.

“However you can. You find something that needs doing and you do it. And when it’s done you find something else and you do that. You keep going until like that until one day you realize living’s not as much of an effort as it used to be—that you’re doing it without even thinking about it.”

“Just like that?”

“Start with something small and manageable,” Diggle suggested. “Eat a piece of toast. Maybe take a shower.”

Oliver’s phone started ringing. The two men stared at each other silently for a moment, and then Diggle went to answer it.

Oliver left the toast on the counter and went out to the balcony, trusting Diggle to keep the rest of the world at bay for him.

* * *

“I need to kill the men who did this to her,” Oliver said when he came back inside a few hours later. He’d been thinking a lot about what Diggle had said, and he’d decided this was his something that needed doing. It was the only way he could think of to keep going.

Diggle looked up at him. “Going after Darhk is suicide, Oliver.”

“Darhk is the one who gave the orders, but he didn’t carry them out himself. I’ll start with something small and manageable, work my way up.”

“And how many of Darhk’s lackeys do you think he’ll let you kill before he comes after you with everything he’s got?”

“I guess I’m going to find out,” Oliver said. And then he added: “I’m not asking you come with me, John.”

Diggle held his gaze, his expression hard and unflinching. “A soldier never lets a brother go into battle alone.”

Oliver nodded. “But no one else. This ends the way it started: with just the two of us.”

* * *

The magic number turned out to be six.

That’s how many of Darhk’s men Oliver and Diggle hunted down and killed before a hit squad was sent to the safe house where Lyla and Sara were staying.

Fortunately, the safe house was a decoy. Lyla and Sara and Thea were hidden halfway around the world, in an ARGUS facility so secure even Damien Darhk couldn’t get at them. Four more of Darhk’s men died in the explosion they inadvertently triggered in the fake safe house, and two others woke up in the critical care burn unit.

By then, Oliver and Diggle had uncovered the location of Darhk’s primary hideout. Not his base of operations, but his private residence. The place where he slept.

They attacked two hours before dawn, zip-lining onto the roof and slipping in via an upstairs window. It triggered an alarm, but they had anticipated that. There turned out to be a few more guards than they had expected, but it was still manageable. Barely.

“Go on,” Diggle said to Oliver when there were only three of Darhk’s men left. “I’ll hold them off. You find Darhk.”

Oliver made his way to the master bedroom but it was empty, the bedsheets thrown aside as if it had been abandoned in haste. The television was on, displaying a grid of security camera feeds from all over the house. Darhk must have watched them infiltrate the house before he fled.

On one of the feeds Oliver he could see Diggle still fighting off two men at the end of the hall, the third lying dead at his feet. On another he caught sight of Darhk disappearing into the basement.

Oliver thundered down the stairs after him. They would only get one chance at this; he couldn’t afford to let him get away.

The basement door was standing wide open when he got there. A flight of stairs disappeared into inky darkness beyond.

Darhk’s voice floated up to him through the gloom: “It’s sort of touching, I suppose, that you’d come here trying to avenge her. But you have to know I’m going to kill you.”

Oliver threw himself over the railing, straight at Darhk. He couldn’t see him, of course. All he could do was aim for the direction the voice was coming from and hope for the best.

He hit the floor with a jarring thud. Before he could recover a fist smashed into his jaw, sending him flying backwards. Oliver bounced off of something hard and sharp that knocked the all wind out of him and probably broke a rib or two.

“Don’t tell me that’s all you’ve got,” Darhk taunted as Oliver gasped for breath.

Two hands clamped on Oliver’s shoulders and dragged him upright. He struck out blindly, managing only an ineffectual, glancing blow before he was tossed across the room.

This time he hit the wall, his skull taking the brunt of the blow. Oliver fought to maintain consciousness as his head exploded in pain.

“I have to say I’m disappointed,” Darhk sneered, hauling him off the floor again. “I expected more of a fight from the Green Arrow.”

He shoved Oliver up against the wall and pressed a palm against his chest. Just like the last time, on the train, searing cold leeched into Oliver’s skin where Darhk touched him. It spread throughout his body, freezing the blood in his veins. Stealing his life away.

But this time Oliver was expecting it. It was what he’d been waiting for. The only way to get close enough to Darhk to do what he needed.

Oliver’s fist clenched around the knife he’d slipped out of his belt. The cold was paralyzing him, sapping all his strength as it worked its way through his veins, but he fought it with everything he had.

Darhk was unimaginably strong—even stronger than he remembered—and Oliver could feel himself growing weaker, drawing closer to death.

Closer to Felicity.

With his last ounce of strength Oliver slid the knife into Darhk’s gut and jerked it viciously upwards.

“For her,” he spat.

Darhk grunted in surprise as the blade tore through his bowels. Hot blood spilled over Oliver’s hands, and then the two of them were tumbling to the floor together.

Oliver held on, driving the knife even deeper into its target. He refused to let go until it was done. He wanted to feel Darhk’s lifeblood seep away, feel every spasm of pain that racked his body in its death throes. He wanted to hear the death rattle as he drew his final breath.

When it was over, Oliver sagged against the floor, utterly used up. He was pinned under Darhk’s lifeless body, too weak even to free himself. A warm, sticky wetness soaked into his clothes, but it wasn’t enough to counteract the numbing cold left behind by Darhk’s magic.

Oliver lay there gasping for a breath he couldn’t catch. His broken rib had punctured his lung. Pain radiated through every nerve ending in his body. All he wanted was for it to end.

He had nothing left to live for. He’d done the one thing he needed to do: Damien Darhk was dead.

It would be a relief to follow him to the grave.

He thought about John. Hoped he was okay. That he would be reunited with Lyla and Sara, that they would get to live the life they deserved. The life that Oliver and Felicity would never have.

And Thea … she was safe, at least. He had done that much for her. The rest was up to her.

Whiteness filled his field of vision, blotting out the darkness of the basement where he lay dying. Just as he felt the last threads of consciousness slipping away from him, Oliver heard Felicity call his name.

It was a gift. He was grateful to be able to hear her voice one last time, even if it was just an illusion his mind had conjured out of pain and fear.

It comforted him to have her with him here at the end: the woman he had loved with every fiber of his being, and with his dying breath.

His Felicity.

* * *

“ _We’re always saying goodbye to each other. You’d think we’d be good at it by now.”_

“ _Well let’s not say goodbye this time.”_

* * *

Oliver opened his eyes. Sunlight streamed in through the cracks in the blinds, but he wasn’t in the loft, or anywhere else he recognized.

The sounds and smells around him were vaguely familiar, but with unpleasant associations.

A hospital. He was in a hospital. So he wasn’t dead, then.

“He’s awake,” Diggle said.

Oliver turned his head. His friend was sitting in a chair beside the bed, looking a little worse for wear, but very much alive.

“Oliver?”

He blinked, and then Felicity was looking down at him.

Which meant he must be dead after all.

She was the most beautiful thing he’d ever seen. Until she smiled at him, and then _that_ was the most beautiful thing he’d ever seen. He never thought he’d get to see that smile again.

Her eyes filled with tears. “Oh, Oliver, thank god.”

She clasped his hand in both of hers. Her touch was warm and soothing and … real?

“Felicity?” he rasped.

“I’m here, Oliver. The explosion was a ruse. Darhk was holding me prisoner, but you came and found me. You saved me.”

She bent down and pressed her lips against his, and that’s when he knew it was really real. Because if this was heaven or some kind of fever dream, she wouldn’t have coffee breath and chapped lips. She wouldn’t be wearing one of Diggle’s old sweatshirts, her hair hanging lank around her face where it’d slipped out of a messy ponytail.

This wasn’t a fantasy. Felicity was alive.

Oliver began to cry.

“Shhh,” she said, tenderly kissing the tears from his cheeks. “You’re safe. I’m here.”

“I had a terrible dream,” he told her. “You were dead.”

“It’s okay,” she said, stroking his face. “Everything’s okay now. I’m right here.”

###


End file.
